MTN Sends Banks Panicky Over Interest In Mobile Banking

Nigerian Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), according to industry sources, are nervous following the recent announcement by telco giant, MTN of its readiness to apply for a Payment Service Bank (PSB) licence and launch mobile banking in Nigeria by the second quarter of next year.

As other telecommunications are also billed to go into mobile banking, the banks are worried that the MTN announcement, which came in the wake of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, release of guidelines on PSBs, would make the business environment, which was already tough for lenders, even tougher.

A senior industry player said with a PSB licence, MTN’s subscriber base of over 50 million clearly gives the telco an edge over banks.

“In fact, most of the major telcos can easily provide most of the services being offered by banks.”

The industry player further stressed that compared to banks, the telcos have a bigger budget and better technical know-how to drive mobile banking.

Last week,  MTN Group announced its plans to apply for payment banking license in Nigeria and launch a service in the country by the second quarter of 2019.

Nairametrics